The quest for new lifestyles: migration, treechange and grey nomads

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. James Hammerton
Keyword(s):  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The Road ◽  
Local Identities ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Ecological Principles ◽  
Serial Migration ◽  
High Valuation ◽  
On The Road

This chapter canvasses the turn to ‘lifestyle’ goals in migration, in ‘escape stories’, in drives to realise ecological principles and anti-urban ideology and in quests for a ‘purer’ way of life often driven by enhanced modern expressions of individualism. It begins with two examples of ‘island stories’, on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, and on Dangar Island in New South Wales. Both exemplify ‘escape’ themes alongside ecological pursuits, close-knit community living and local identities. ‘Tree-change’ stories’ denote similar lifestyle passions, one shaping a lifetime pursuit for Nordic landscapes, finally settling in New Zealand. Others establish connections between lifestyle goals and ‘new age’ aspirations, settling in locations associated with alternative lifestyles like Byron Bay in New South Wales. Cosmopolitan identities co-existed with continuing mobility, a strong sense of place and high valuation on belonging to ‘the land’. ‘Grey nomad’ touring marked the ultimate extension of serial migration, with a nomadic couple’s account of passions for global mobility and lifestyle pursuits into retirement years, recalling former migration while continuing permanent itinerancy in the mobile home, earning a living on the road without fixed address.

The New South Wales Air Ambulance

1968 ◽  
Vol 72 (695) ◽  
pp. 956
Author(s):  
Nancy-Bird Walton
Keyword(s):  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
First Year ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Air Ambulance ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
The Road ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Specialist Treatment ◽  
On The Road

The Air Ambulance of New South Wales came into operation on Good Friday 1967. Less than sixteen months later as I write it has carried 2348 patients in 807 flights. Four hundred and eleven of these patients have been emergencies and it is highly probable that most of them would not have survived a long distance road journey. With few exceptions all patients have been sent in by country doctors for specialist treatment in the metropolitan area. Introduced as an Air Arm to the excellent road ambulance service it was intended to avoid the road journeys for distances of more than 175 miles. In the first year it saved that service 932 760 road miles. The time that patients would have spent on the road was 16 201 hours, this was reduced by air to 3 094 hours. It is hardly necessary to add what this means to a sick or injured person. Although deeply unconscious and in a state of shock patients have been transported without their condition deteriorating.

The remaining koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) of the Pilliga forests, north-west New South Wales: refugial persistence or a population on the road to extinction?

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Lunney ◽  
Martin Predavec ◽  
Indrie Sonawane ◽  
Rodney Kavanagh ◽  
George Barrott-Brown ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Initial Density ◽  
Active Management ◽  
Phascolarctos Cinereus ◽  
North West ◽  
The Road ◽  
South Wales ◽  
On The Road ◽  
Rate Of Decline

In the 1990s, the Pilliga forests were carrying the largest population of koalas west of the Great Dividing Range in New South Wales (NSW). Whereas the NSW koala population in its entirety was thought to be in decline, the Pilliga population stood out as potentially increasing. By 2007, anecdotal evidence suggested that the population was in decline. We undertook surveys of koalas in the Pilliga forests that repeated surveys undertaken between 1991 and 2011. We found that koalas had declined and were found in only 21% of sites in which they were observed in the initial surveys – by any measure, a 5-fold drop in occupancy in less than two decades is severe. Declines occurred evenly across the Pilliga, with persistence at a site seemingly related to a high initial density of koalas rather than to a slower rate of decline. Sites where koalas persisted were characterised as having higher temperatures and lower rainfall relative to other sites, being close to drainage lines with deeper soils and having a lower occurrence of fire. This pattern fits with the observation in the recent surveys that koalas were next to drainage lines in the western half of the Pilliga and fits with the suggestion that koalas show refugial persistence. Recovery from this point is not assured and will depend on how we manage the landscape, particularly with the threat of climate change. This will likely require active management within an adaptive management framework, such as restoration of refuges, and not simply habitat reservation.

The Stomach Contents of Foxes, Vulpes Vulpes, Collected in New South Wales.

1978 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 85 ◽  
Author(s):  
JD Croft ◽  
LJ Hone
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Domestic Fowl ◽  
Vulpes Vulpes ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Stomach Contents ◽  
The Road ◽  
Food Items ◽  
South Wales ◽  
On The Road

Foxes were killed in each of 4 seasons in the 5 years 1969-73 and a table gives numbers of stomachs with food for each year and season in each of 6 regions into which New South Wales was divided according to climate, vegetation and land use. Incidence of 11 food items or classes of food varied with region. An appendix lists precentage and volume of food items for the 811 foxes with food, out of the 899 that were killed. Main foods were rabbit, sheep and house mouse, by number and volume. The number of plant and insect items was high but the volume was low. Food included reptiles, amphibians, fish, grass and fruit. Foxes seemed to be opportunists and scavengers; food included feral pig and kangaroo when those were being shot locally, sheep carrion in the lambing season, mice during a plague of mice, domestic fowl, birds and animals probably killed on the road, and blackberries and apples in season. Insects included maggots, locusts and processionary caterpillars.

Cutting the carnage: wildlife usage of road culverts in north-eastern New South Wales

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan D. Taylor ◽  
Ross L. Goldingay
Keyword(s):  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Road Mortality ◽  
The Road ◽  
North East ◽  
Road Section ◽  
South Wales ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
The Usa

Culverts have been used for a number of decades in Europe and the USA to reduce wildlife road-kills. In Australia, culverts have been employed by road authorities only relatively recently. This study used sand-strip surveys to investigate wildlife usage of nine purpose-built culverts along a 1.4-km section of the Pacific Highway at Brunswick Heads, north-east New South Wales. Surveys during two eight-day periods in spring and summer 2000 found 1202 traverses by wildlife through the culverts. Frequent culvert users were bandicoots (25% of traverses), rats (25%), wallabies (13%) and cane toads (14%). All culverts were used by these species, suggesting that at least several individuals of each species were involved. Infrequent users (each <2% of crossings) were possums, echidnas, lizards, birds and introduced carnivores. A koala was recorded crossing on two occasions. The long-nosed potoroo was observed in the surrounding habitat but was not confirmed traversing the culverts. Surveys for road-kills on this road section suggest that the exclusion fence bordering the highway prevented mammal road-kills and channeled mammals to the culverts. A single survey on a wet night found many frogs crossing the road surface and many were killed. This study confirms that culverts and exclusion fencing facilitate safe passage across a road for a range of wildlife species. This suggests that this form of management response to extensive road mortality of wildlife is appropriate and should be adopted more widely. However, this form of mitigation is not effective for frogs.

Use of highway underpasses by bandicoots over a 7-year period that encompassed road widening

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan D. Taylor ◽  
Ross L. Goldingay
Keyword(s):  
Animal Movement ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Highway Construction ◽  
Habitat Patches ◽  
The Road ◽  
Barrier Effects ◽  
South Wales ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Road Widening

Roads may create filters or barriers to animal movement and adversely affect population processes. Underpasses are now commonly installed during highway construction to mitigate barrier effects and link habitat patches. We used sand-tracking to investigate use of six underpasses by bandicoots along a section of the Pacific Highway in northern New South Wales before, during and after road duplication (i.e. expansion from two to four lanes). Trapping revealed that the northern brown bandicoot (Isoodon macrourus) and the long-nosed bandicoot (Perameles nasuta) were equally abundant prior to highway expansion. Five years before highway widening, bandicoots frequently used 18-m-long underpasses (>1 traverses per day). Twelve months before road widening, underpass use by bandicoots declined to ~0.5 traverses per day and continued near this level during construction. This declined to 0.03 traverses per day after duplication with underpasses extended to ≥49 m in length. Few crossings were recorded after expansion of the road corridor, which may indicate a shift from regular foraging traverses before duplication to infrequent dispersal movements after duplication.

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